Tyson Gay, shown after placing second after the Men's 100m final during the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin, said Sunday, July 14, 2013, that he tested positive for a banned substance and that he will pull out of the world championships next month in Moscow. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus, File)

The list reads like a Who's Who among the world's best sprinters:

Jamaican Asafa Powell, the former world-record holder at 100 meters.

American champion Tyson Gay, who went out of his way to promote himself as an anti-drug athlete.

Jamaican Sherone Simpson, who has a gold and two silver Olympic medals to her credit.

Word came Sunday that all three had failed drug tests. "A sad day," one former track official called it -- and certainly a day that punctured the myth that the oft-troubled sport has cleaned up its act.

"I am not now -- nor have I ever been -- a cheat," Powell said in a message released through his Twitter account.

Powell, 30, whose 100-meter record of 9.

Asafa Powell (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

74 stood until Usain Bolt beat it in 2008, was calling for an investigation as to how a stimulant called oxilofrine entered his system and caused a positive test at Jamaica's national championships in June.

Simpson, who tested positive for the same stimulant, said she "would not intentionally take an illegal substance of any form into my system."

Gay, the American-record holder in the 100, was more contrite, though he wasn't taking full responsibility.

"I don't have a sabotage story. I don't have any lies. I don't have anything to say to make this seem like it was a mistake or it was on USADA's hands, someone playing games," said Gay, who fought back sobs in a telephone interview. "I don't have any of those stories.

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I basically put my trust in someone and I was let down."

Gay, who won the 100 and 200 meters at U.S. nationals last month, said he would pull out of the world championships.

The 30-year-old, who won the world championship in the 100, 200 and 4x100 relay in 2007, took part in the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's "My Victory" program -- in which athletes volunteer for enhanced testing to prove they're clean -- and his results never raised red flags.

Sherone Simpson (Photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Until, that is, an out-of-competition test May 16, where results came back positive for a banned substance, the identity of which neither he nor USADA CEO Travis Tygart would reveal.

Gay said his "B" sample will be tested soon, possibly as early as this week.

Generally, first-time offenders are hit with two-year bans, though reduced penalties are sometimes given if there are extenuating circumstances, which both Gay and his coach, Lance Brauman, said there were.

"He mentioned that he (trusted) someone and that person was untrustworthy at the end of the day," Brauman told the Associated Press in a phone interview. "Maybe I'm naive, but I believe him."

While Gay's case gets sorted out on U.S. turf, the positives recorded by Powell and Simpson are part of a bigger doping crisis hitting Jamaica, the home of Bolt and the country that has won 28 medals over the past three Olympics.

In Sunday's editions, the Gleaner newspaper of Jamaica reported that five athletes had tested positive. Paul Doyle, the agent who represents Powell and Simpson, confirmed to the AP that his sprinters were among them.

The news stirred up angst on the island, where success on the track is a point of pride but the rigor of the country's anti-doping program is under constant scrutiny.

"This does not auger well for track and field globally," said Rashalee Mitchell, a 29-year-old assistant social sciences lecturer at Jamaica's campus of the University of the West Indies. "It is fast serving to taint ... our proud and long-standing reputation of producing strong, excellent, raw, homegrown talent that has excelled on the world stage without any drug-related enhancement."

The news came a month after another Jamaican Olympic gold medalist, Veronica Campbell-Brown, tested positive for a banned diuretic.

Campbell-Brown is being suspended while a disciplinary panel reviews her case. Track's governing body said the case appeared to involve a "lesser" offense, which could mean a reduced sentence for the 200-meter champion at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics.

"This result has left me completely devastated in many respects," said Powell, who didn't qualify for individual spots at worlds but could still make Jamaica's relay team if his positive test doesn't net a suspension. "I am reeling ... I am confident, however, that I will come out stronger and wiser and better prepared to deal with the many twists and turns of being a professional athlete."